Read the full article from Hartford Business Journal.
The Richmond, Virginia-based operator submitted three competing offers in response to a request for proposals from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Each of the offers would begin in October 2029, the day after existing Millstone contracts with utility companies Eversource Energy and United Illuminating expire.
Dominion filed the proposal March 17 in Connecticut’s zero-carbon energy procurement.
In the filing, the company told regulators that without a long-term contract, its decision to pursue federal license renewal for Millstone Unit 2 “becomes materially more challenging, increasing the risk of a Unit 2 license expiration and retirement.”
Unit 2’s current Nuclear Regulatory Commission license expires in 2035. Dominion has said it will apply for a license renewal that would extend operations through 2055, with a similar extension for the larger Unit 3 through 2065, though its plans could change.
The company also made clear that Connecticut utilities are not its only potential buyer. The proposal identifies “a well-capitalized counterparty,” such as a data center operator, that could underwrite the relicensing investment. Its filing specifically mentions a 17-year, 20 million-megawatt-hour-per-year agreement between Amazon Web Services and an energy producer in Pennsylvania, and another power-purchasing deal involving Facebook’s owner, Meta Platforms Inc.
A retirement of Unit 2 would further strain Connecticut’s electricity supply. Millstone is the largest single generating facility in New England, with two reactors producing about 17 million megawatt-hours of electricity each year — the majority of the state’s emissions-free generation.
Unit 2 has 910 megawatts of capacity, while Unit 3 has 1,388 megawatts. Under the contracts signed in 2018, Connecticut utilities buy about half of Millstone’s output, with the rest sold into the regional grid. The plant employs more than 850 full-time Dominion staff plus about 380 full-time contractors in southeastern Connecticut, according to the filing.
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